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With advice, your shirt won't end up too short—A Tajik proverb

Written by Op Mercy Tajikistan

Some of the most vulnerable people in a developing country are children and adults with disabilities. In partnership with local NGOs and DPOs (disabled peoples organisations) we assist those with disabilities through Community-Based Rehabilitation, Early Intervention, Inclusive Education, and the provision of assistive devices in Tajikistan. We provide educational seminars, promotion campaigns, advocacy and support for families with a disabled member.

Recently we were looking at our current capacity and the capacity of our local NGOs and DPOs when one of our participants quotes the proverb above and it struck a chord.

With advice, your shirt won't end up too short—A Tajik proverb

We were sitting around a table, two people are blind, two are physically disabled, one is a father of a boy with Down's syndrome and one is a doctor. Last month the meeting had also included mothers of children with disabilities and teachers. We're working together with these people and their organisations to develop social services and community-based rehabilitation in Tajikistan.

We're learning how to work together: how to best offer advice. We are learning where our strengths meet someone else's weakness and we all stand to gain much from this process. With advice, hopefully, our projects will not fall short. Building sustainable community-based services for people with disabilities is harder than sewing a new shirt but we have found the principle still holds true. We're learning to listen to each other. We take advice and actively mentor each other.

Operation Mercy

Who we are

Operation Mercy is an international relief and development organization headquartered in Sweden. We are a community of professionals who serve the poor and marginalized of Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa through an array of community development and humanitarian aid projects.